


Wish You Were Here

by Camelittle



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Angst, Angst and Humor, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Grief, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Immortal Merlin, M/M, Minor Character Death, Nice Uther, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-17
Updated: 2017-10-17
Packaged: 2019-01-18 17:40:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12392913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Camelittle/pseuds/Camelittle
Summary: Alone and grieving, Arthur finds that his home, full of echoes of his father’s life, is no longer a sanctuary. As much for something to do as anything else, he takes a temporary job at the station cafe, where an unexpected encounter turns his world upside down.





	Wish You Were Here

**Author's Note:**

> Title with thanks to the immortal Pink Floyd. https://youtu.be/uEPVqJjMiAc
> 
> With my thanks to Jo, who read an early draft and was just enormously kind and encouraging. A word of advice: do go and check out Jo’s amazing art! You won’t regret it :) http://incalescentember.tumblr.com/
> 
> Fills the "Grief" square on my hurt/comfort bingo card.

Thanks to the system that he had learned over the past two weeks, Arthur and Gwen could process up to six hundred customers per hour, if they operated at maximum efficiency. For three hours every day, from six until nine, a constant queue of impatient commuters shuffled into the tiny, waiting-room cafe on Platform 4. For three hours, every day, Arthur smiled and joked and pretended that he was fine. For three hours and more, every day, his internal sound track sang snippets of the Pink Floyd track that had played at his father’s funeral. He couldn’t help it. The damn thing just looped round in his head. Over and over.

“Flat white, skinny, extra shot,” he repeated to the customer. ( _So. So you think you can tell? Heaven from hell?)_ “Two eighty five, please, madam.”

Taking the cash with a smile, Arthur expertly extracted fifteen pence change from the till with a clatter. He could do this, he could act as if everything was all right. He was a total pro at it.

His dad would have been proud.

“Grim weather, this morning!” The customer, a white woman with improbably blonde hair, was immaculately dressed in a pressed trouser suit with a purple trench-coat and high-heeled leather boots. She stood back to wait for Gwen to dispatch her order.

“Yeah,” said Arthur. “Nice weather for goldfish. Or ducks!” ( _Blue skies from pain.)_

“Quack, quack,” joked the woman, with a sly glance up and down Arthur’s face that Arthur knew signalled appreciation.

See? Total pro. He slid the queued lids along and turned to Gwen.

“One hazelnut mochaccino, one americano black, one skinny flat white with an extra shot,” he said.

That was the system. Simple really. Always three lids in the queue, because that was how many he could keep in short term memory. Always smile, even if it’s fake. The customer expects it. Don’t zone out and stare at nothing. It’s bad for business.

The effort made his throat hurt.

“On it,” Gwen said over her shoulder, her braid swinging. She whistled between her teeth as she bustled and clattered. “Hazelnut mochaccino? Oh, hullo, Imran. How’s Zain getting on at... Nottingham, was it?” She handed the drink to a suited, grey-haired man. Arthur recognised him as the one who always ordered the sweetest things on the menu.

“Loughborough, actually Fine thanks.” His eyes flicked up to the departures board. Two minutes until the next train. “He’s got trials for the university cricket team soon. Can I have a pain au chocolate, with that please?” His attitude was every inch that of the proud father.

“I fear for your cholesterol, mate,” said Arthur, using his tongs to slip a hot pastry into a bag. ( _How I wish. How I wish you were here.)_ “That’ll be another two-fifteen.”

They were a good team. As they charmed their customers, Arthur fulfilled tea and hot pastry orders, while Gwen bashed the coffee machine, dispatching flat whites and skinny lattes with a cheerful rhythm that belied her speed.

They were the best three hours of his day. Amid the occasional deafening rumble of passing trains, and the constant hiss and gurgle of the coffee machine, as he juggled with money and teabags, and expressed horror at the latest edicts of Arsene Wenger with his unfortunate fellow Arsenal fans, there was no time to think.

It was a welcome escape from his too-empty, too-silent home, but even so, the black numbness crept over him at odd moments, and he found himself staring out of the window at the relentless drizzle. Especially later on, when the stream of commuters through the Platform 4 Coffee shop slowed to a trickle of day trippers, travellers, and shoppers. By eleven o’clock, Gwen had commenced her stock take and he was just standing around, waiting for customers. He yawned, eyes beginning to sting from the effort of keeping awake.

A train drew into the platform outside the cafe window. Arthur blinked at the outline of a man, silhouetted on the carriage window, and suddenly, he had no idea why, it reminded him of his father. But of course, it couldn’t be his father. Not now, not ever again. The wrongness made his throat ache and his vision blur.

The man looked up, catching Arthur’s eye. On second glance, he looked nothing like Uther Pendragon. Arthur hastily looked away, blinking.

“Arthur?” Gwen’s hand was warm on his shoulder, and her eyes held more understanding than Arthur liked.

“Hmm?” said Arthur.

“All right?” she said.

He swallowed and nodded, not trusting his voice.

“Look, it’s quiet now, I can cope fine on my own. You look awful!” She caught her lip with her teeth and she winced. “Of course, I don’t mean literally, handsome guy like you! God, no, I’m such a numpty… ”

Her awkwardness made Arthur laugh, a little breeze of relief gusting through his lungs, lifting his mouth a little. A sudden warmth flooded him at her genuine concern.

“Oops!” She carried on. “It’s just.... you do look tired… not ugly, not that it’s bad to be ugly, I mean, ugh, what I’m trying to say is, Arthur, you’re… look, do you want to go home?”

Home, where the wood floors and bare walls screamed of regret and a numbing, constant tension? That was the last thing he wanted.

“Nah.” His smile slipping a little, he shook his head. _(Did they get you to change your heroes for ghosts?)_   “Too peaceful by far.”

It hadn’t always been like that. In Uther’s final days, with the constant trail of hospice nurses, and doctors, there had been little enough time for peace and quiet. Worst of all was the relentless beep-beep of the heart monitor - startling at every change in rhythm, Arthur would rush in from whatever task he was doing - making a cup of tea for the latest staff changeover, most often - and ask if everything was all right. Eventually, a kind nurse, seeing the tension that no doubt poured off him in unhappy waves, had taken his hand and told him, in a gentle voice, to go for a walk, with the reassurance that she would call him if there was any change.

But now, now all that was gone, and the peace that had returned sometimes was so complete that he felt like he could drown in it.

“Do you want to come round for dinner?” A worried line appeared between Gwen’s eyes. “Lance is making pasta—”

“No,” he said firmly. “Just need… just need to be kept busy.”

“Sure?”

“Sure.” He cast around for something lighthearted to say, to ease the tension. “Plus, there’s the whole helping people thing. I mean, all those years of commuting myself. I know how desperate they are for coffee. We’re doing a public service. And I... I need that.” As a joke, it was a total failure, far too close to the truth to be comfortable. He cleared his throat. Damn it, Arthur.

( _We’re just two lost souls, swimming in a fish bowl. Year after year.)_

She kept sceptical eyes trained on his for a moment, but she released his shoulder. Bang on cue, the bell above the door jingled.

“There you go. In that case…” she jerked her head towards the door. “Can you deal with this customer? I need to finish this stock take.”

“On it,” said Arthur, turning to the elderly guy who was struggling in, a scuffed old duffle bag across one shoulder.

“Great.” Gwen crouched back down behind the counter.

The old man had a striking appearance. Long, unkempt white hair, wispy despite the rain, straggled down around his shoulders and merged with an equally untidy white beard that hid much of his face. His eyes were a flash of blue beneath heavy, stern eyebrows. There was something faintly familiar about him, but Arthur couldn’t place where his sense of deja vu came from.

A group of three teenage boys followed him in, exuberant and loud. Arthur recognised them; a bunch of local kids with more bravado than sense. He would have to intervene. To prepare, he took in a deep breath, and blew out his lips as he exhaled.

“Oi! Wait for us, Dumbledore!” said one. The others all roared with laughter at his sparkling wit.

“Right, you lot. Get out.” Arthur pushed up the countertop so that he could stand between them and the old guy - and at the same time between their inquisitive fingers and the sweet treats that were stacked up next to the counter. He didn’t begrudge food to hungry people, and he knew life was hard for some of these kids, but Gwen had a business to run, and this lot were prone to taking her sweets and selling them off at school for profit. “And stop bothering this poor old man.”

“Hey! Less of the old!” said the man, even as he hobbled over to a chair and sank into with a relieved sigh. “Dumble-wotsit, eh? Is it? Is it? Hmm?” he muttered under his breath. “Humph. That imposter. Him and his bloody wand. As if! Bloody kids, these days. No respect for their betters...”

“Now, you lot.” Ignoring the old bloke, Arthur frowned, squaring his stance as he faced down the three teenagers. The one who had spoken, the ringleader, was a pale-faced youth of about fourteen, with a spiteful mouth and a mop of dark curls. A Camelot Raiders football jersey peeped out from under his coat. “Shouldn’t you be at school?”

 _“...bloody imposter. Bloody wands for everything. Wands! I ask you! Phallic nonsense…_ ”

“We ain’t doing nothing wrong,” said the ringleader, lifting his jaw. “It’s an INSET day.”

“Yeah,” jeered one of his sidekicks, a skinny boy with an unfortunate crop of pimples. “What you gonna do about it, fuckface.”

“Yeah!” said the third boy, evidently even less articulate than his friends.   

_“... Harry Bleedin’ Potter. Huh. As if a buggering phoenix would deign to…”_

Arthur pushed his hair back from his forehead, with tired hands. He could do without this shit.

“Me? _I_ am not going to do anything,” he said, exhaling in a bored sort of way. “But did you know that the manager of this shop is also one of the head coaches for the Camelot Raiders football squad?”

Bang on queue, Gwen stood up behind the counter, and stared down at the kids. “Is there a problem, Arthur?”

“Miss Smith?” The kid’s eyes widened as he looked over at Gwen, and he took an involuntary step back.

“Mordred Jones?” She folded her arms. “Apologise to my customer or you’ll find yourself on the bench this weekend.”

_“...disrespectful nonsense. And as for that Ronald Weasle-Wossname, he’s no better than he should be…”_

The teenagers shuffled their feet around and muttered sulky apologies.

“Louder,” she said.

“Huh! Sorry!” shouted Jones in a defiant voice. “This place is boring, anyway.” With a final backwards glare at Arthur, Mordred stalked off, the other two scrambling to keep up.

“Ha!” The old man interrupted his stream-of-consciousness complaints about fictional wizards, cackled and slapped his thigh. His eyes twinkled a startling blue, from beneath long, white brows. “That told the cheeky little buggers!”

“Sorry about that,” said Arthur. “Are you feeling all right? You look a bit peaky.”

The old geezer was indeed staring at him, open-mouthed, and he’d gone, if anything, even paler.

“You!” He lifted a shaky finger and pointed it at Arthur, still gaping. “It’s…” he turned his attention on Gwen. “And you! You’re… Good lord!”

“Can I get you anything hot to drink?” said Arthur. _(Hot ashes for trees. Hot air for a cool breeze.)_ Evidently the old chap was suffering from shock. It was the least he could do, and besides which, something about this grumpy old goat, with his shabby raincoat and his huge, scuffed up boots, and ridiculous rain-hat, raised bumps of curiosity on his skin.

“It’s…” The old guy carried on gazing incredulously at him for a moment or two. “Well I… Well. Ahem. Um. Good lord! How much for a hot chocolate?” Removing his hat from his head, he ran shaking fingers through his straggly, unkempt hair. “Good lord. Well, I never.”

“Um. Three pounds.” It was their most expensive hot drink, but it did contain more calories than most meals. _(Cold comfort for change.)_

“ _Three pounds?_ ” Aghast, the old man rummaged around in a hidden pocket, and poked at a small handful of coins. “Hmm. In that case, maybe I won’t bother.” He leaned forward, putting one hand on the table, the other on his umbrella, and started to struggle to his feet.

“Don’t worry!” cried Gwen. “You’ve had a bit of a shock. After what that evil little squirt said, this one’s on the house.”

“Oh, well, in that case!” The old man sat back down. A grateful smile lit up his face. “Thank you very much. Good lord! Of all the...”

Gwen prepped the drink, and Arthur took it over, so that the old bloke didn’t have to get up again.

“Here you are,” he said, putting it down on the table. “A nice, hot drink and you’ll be right as rain.”

There was an echo of his father’s words in there, a phrase that Uther sometimes used when Arthur was a child, and Uther was patching up Arthur’s ruined knees or elbows. _Right as rain._ Arthur could hear Uther’s voice in his head, picture him as he peered down at a small, disconsolate, nine-year-old Arthur, while Arthur raged about the unfairness of life, of teachers, opposing rugby teams, and rugby coaches.

As a child, Arthur had always worn his emotions shallowly under the skin, erupting into lengthy tirades when his feelings overwhelmed him and erupted in bluster and rage. Never a demonstrative man, Uther had been thrust into this whirlwind of pain and tension when Arthur was five, after Ygraine died, leaving him alone with Arthur and his tempestuous emotions. It must have been hellish for him, Arthur realised now. But his younger self had never really understood Uther’s inner turmoil at the time, instead thinking of him as insufferably composed.

And so Arthur would rant, and screech, and pummel Uther’s belly with small fists, accusing his father of being an unfeeling monster. In the face of these regular outbursts, Uther had been an oasis of calm, waiting for the storm to pass with an air of weary detachment, and then providing comfort in the aftermath, in the form of hot drinks, and sympathetic pats on the back.

A hot drink and a game of rugby on the telly was Arthur’s go-to comfort of choice, even now.

_(How I wish. How I wish you were here.)_

He drew in a deep breath, and blinked away a sudden wave of profound emptiness that dragged at him. His hand shook as he pulled a stack of paper cups off the shelf.

“Arthur?” said Gwen. Sympathy darkened her eyes. “Are you doing okay?”

“Yeah,” he lied, swallowing back the tide of melancholy. It had been two weeks, now, since she had persuaded him to come and help her out at the shop. And it was good; it gave him a purpose and stopped him from brooding. It wasn’t her fault if grief kept pulling him down into this heavy, black numbness. “I’m fine.”

“I think you’ve got a new fan.” She nodded over at the old guy he’d rescued.

He was staring at them both, his eyes a startling blue that flashed for a moment before he looked away, grumbling in a low voice that Arthur could barely hear.

_“…three pounds. For a hot chocolate! It’s nice, mind. But three quid? Daylight robbery ... “_

Customers came and went. But the bloke just sat there, muttering at his cup.

_“...Bloody Dumbledore, indeed. Of all the cheek. Gandalf, now. Gandalf had class. But Dumbledore? That tin-pot, twopenny hedge-wizard…”_

A couple of times Arthur, feeling inquisitive eyes upon him, looked up. But every time, the old man was looking away, so that Arthur thought he must have imagined it.

There _was_ something familiar about him. Arthur hadn’t imagined it! But he couldn’t place him, not at all.

~o~

“I’ll be with you in just a sec.” It was a couple of weeks later. Gwen was off on a mission to get more milk, and Arthur, biro between his teeth, was taking advantage of a brief lull to gather the spent coffee grounds into the bucket that they would take out for Gwen’s compost heap later.

“Hmm. Hope your coffee tastes better than it smells.” That voice—now, where had he heard it before?

“Huh?” Arthur looked up from where he was crouching, and locked eyes with the same old guy he had rescued from those kids. “Well I hope you’re less rude than you sound.”

“Touche!” The old bloke laughed. His eyes crinkled, full of mischief and good humour. But somehow, as the gentle timbre of his laugh steadied to a lingering smile, the folds and wrinkles at their edges revealed a sense of sadness and loss that reminded Arthur of what he saw in his own mirror, each morning.

“These are just the grounds.” Arthur bit his lip as he popped the bucket of grounds into the cupboard under the counter, and turned to wash his hands, adding over his shoulder, “we compost them, you see.” He wiped his hands on the teatowel that hung from his belt.

“How very responsible of you.” A beaming smile split the man’s face.

He looked different today, neater somehow. The scraggly beard had been trimmed, and had flecks of black in it, where Arthur could have sworn that previously it had been a pure, snowy white. And his hair, too, come to mention it. It was more salt and pepper than white. Instead of the faded, beaten-up old greatcoat and scuffed boots he’d been wearing previously, he now was dressed in an altogether sharper pair of brushed-cotton, midnight-blue trousers, and a tailored shirt peeped out from beneath what looked like a cashmere v-necked jumper. He looked like an eccentric, though well-to-do traveller - not out of place in this town.

“So, what shall it be, today?” said Arthur. “The same again, or...?”

“Hmm. I should like to try a cappuccino, please.”

“Coming right up, Mr…?” Suddenly curious, Arthur deliberately left the statement open for a reply.

“Oh,” The guy thought for a moment. And who has to think about what their name is? More curious than ever, Arthur stilled as he waited for the rest of his reply. “Um. Er. Just… just call me M.”

“Oh?”

“No, not O, M! Get it?” M erupted into peals of laughter.

“M. I see. Right, because that wouldn’t be mysterious at all.” It was odd how comfortable Arthur felt, joking around with this customer. He hadn’t been this at ease with someone for… well, he couldn’t quite remember when. “You look different. Have you dyed your hair?”

“ _You_ look different.” M echoed, his eyes raking Arthur’s body, taking in the coffee stains on his apron and the pencil that lurked behind his ear. “Have you forgotten to do the laundry?”

“Thanks a bunch!” Chuckling, Arthur dispensed a scoop of freshly ground coffee into the filter,. “So, are you a spy, or do you just like winding baristas up?” He inserted the filter into its holder and twisted the handle, retrieving a cup from the warming tray with his other hand.

“The latter?” M cocked his head on one side. “Only if they’re curious clotpoles, prying prats or nosy nincompoops, though.” He snorted as if he’d made a very funny joke.

“Are you always this irritating, or is that just a front to hide your secret persona?” Smiling, Arthur expertly applied the steam nozzle to the milk and swirled it to a hot, steamy froth, before pouring it into the cup.

“Just part of my charm,” said M.

There it was again, that powerful sense of deja vu. Who did M remind him of? Arthur frowned as a shot of espresso trickled into the cup, leaving a dark stain on the white, creamy topping.

But there was no time to chase down the memory, because right then Gwen came back in, and in her wake trailed a group of middle-aged shoppers, chatting excitedly about their upcoming day. M took his coffee over to the table in the corner, where he nursed it. Occasionally Arthur heard muttered references to nincompoops and clotpoles, which should have been annoying but instead made him smile. He didn’t know why.  

Every so often, Arthur would look up and catch M in the act of looking away. There was a strange connection between them, he hadn’t imagined it, he knew he hadn’t. When Gwen went out with the waste, and Arthur pushed up the countertop to turn the “open” sign round, M was still there, leafing through an old copy of Metro, and toying with an old receipt, ripping it into small pieces.

It wouldn’t be the first time that Gwen had let some old down-on-his-luck vagrant sit in the cafe all day to keep warm, but M didn’t look like a vagrant, not any more.

“We’re closing,” said Arthur, eventually, crossing the room to sit opposite M. “I’m sorry. I’m going to have to boot you out. But look. Do you mind if I ask… why do you keep staring at me?”  

“Hmm.” M had a very expressive mouth, and incongruously plump lips, which he pressed together, now, before looking back at Arthur with those strangely blue eyes of his. “You remind me of someone.” He stared out of the window for a moment, and sighed, his breath sending scraps of paper skittering across the table, eyes clouding at some distant memory. “Someone I knew a long time ago.”

When he struggled to his feet, their eyes met again.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” said M, abruptly. He jammed a felt hat onto his head, and grabbed a walking stick.

“ _What?_ ” Arthur’s jaw went slack. “How did you—?”

“It’s in your eyes,” said the old man.

_(Running over the same old ground. And have we found the same old fears? Wish you were here.)_

A freight train thundered past, rendering all speech inaudible for a good twenty seconds or more, by which time M had disappeared from the platform entirely.

~o~

Mornings were all right. But by lunchtime, it was time to cash up, rack down the shutters and lock the door and the rest of the day would be his, leaving him alone. That’s when all the _what ifs_ piled in among the _if onlys_ and the resulting tangle of thoughts made his throat thick with misery and self loathing.

“Goodbye Arthur.” Gwen put a sympathetic hand on his arm, and God, he hated that sympathy sometimes. “Will you be all right?”

“I’m fine,” he said, gruffly, flinching away from the warmth of her hand on his arm. “Busy afternoon. See you tomorrow.”

“Good, good.” She bit her lip, and a worry line appeared between her brows. “It’s just that I don’t like to think of you on your own.”

“I’m fine,” he repeated, as firmly as he could, because it wouldn’t do to let his voice crack, not now, so it might have come out a bit on the over-emphatic side.

“Just as long as you’re sure.”

“Of course I am.” Arthur rolled his eyes. “Don’t be such a worry-wart. Now, go home!

It was a lie, and they both knew it, but he didn’t want her worry weighing on him. His mood was heavy enough as it was.

He kicked listlessly through puddles, ignoring the water that seeped through his Oxfords and his socks, making his toes slosh around on the hard leather. Grey sky merged with rain that sleeted onto grey streets, making them shine. Arthur’s melancholy, always close to the surface, grew into a bleak kind of emptiness.

As much to avoid going home to the huge, empty mansion as anything else, on a whim he stepped into another coffee shop in the town instead. His umbrella dribbled onto the floor by his side while he stared at a mindless game on his phone. While his tea thawed out his hands, the rest of him felt numb, disconnected, in a way that there was no simple remedy for.

The cafe had a radio, which was playing some god-awful 1980s crap, the sort of thing that he and his dad used to argue about, but without heat, just in play. Arthur would take the piss out of a song like this, what was it playing? Some shite with a electronic drum beat and lots of synthesizer. And Uther would say things like, _"how can you say that about such a classic band? Duran Duran were seminal, Arthur! Seminal!",_ and turn the sound up. And Arthur would go to his room and put on something decent, like Pink Floyd, waiting for Uther to tell him to turn that racket off. And this was the thing, he actually secretly quite liked Duran Duran, and he knew, he damn well _knew_ that Uther adored Pink Floyd - he had all their albums for Christ’s sake, and went to see them in the 1970s! No wonder his hearing was shot to pieces. But it was the game that mattered, the game that was the important thing, it was uniquely _theirs_ , and no-one else knew about it or understood, but it was something special that he had with his dad, and now it was gone and no-one would ever deliberately insult Arthur’s eardrums with bloody _Save a Prayer_ on full volume ever again, and it just wasn’t fucking fair.

 _“Don’t say a prayer for me now. Save it til the morning after,”_ blared the radio _._

_(How I wish. How I wish you were here!)_

With his fork, Arthur poked at a dry slice of carrot cake. Gwen was always on at him to eat properly, to treat himself. But whenever he tried to swallow, he found a great lump of sadness blocking his throat.

Jesus, Arthur. Get yourself together.

He rubbed a shaking hand across his eyes.

“Mind if I join you?”

Surprised, Arthur looked up from his phone. M was standing there, a tray balanced on his hands.

“Be my guest,” Arthur rasped, before hastily turning back to his phone. He swallowed, thickly, and took in a couple of long breaths, wishing he’d gone home.

A warm hand covered his. “It does get better, in time. I mean, it doesn’t go away. But you become able to carry it with you, eventually.”

“What made you so wise?” Snatching his hand away, Arthur leaned forward and buried his head in his hands, feeling his skull beneath his fingertips, imagining himself away, far away, somewhere else, anywhere else. Anyone else.

“It’s still so recent, for you.” M’s voice was deeper than he remembered, and had a soothing, hypnotic resonance to it that Arthur found instantly calming. “It is hard. Be kind to yourself.” He paused. “Look. You obviously don’t want company. I’ll leave you in peace.” There was a noise, as if he was dragging his chair back.

Ignoring how wrecked he must look, Arthur looked blurrily up into calm, ocean-blue eyes.

“No. Don’t go,” he whispered. “Please.”

“All right, if that’s what you want.” M slid back into his chair, his movements curiously graceful for one so old. He set his chocolate cake down upon the table, and arranged the teapot and cup next to it, putting his tray to one side.

“My father always loved the chocolate cake in here,” said Arthur in a rasping voice that sounded unfamiliar even to himself. He cleared his throat. “He, um. Well, he loved the frothy cream they put on it. I said it would kill him one day.” He laughed, hollowly. “Wish I’d been wrong.” No longer having any appetite, he pushed his own half-eaten carrot cake to one side.

“You miss him.” Unconcerned by Arthur’s veiled warning, M tucked into his cake with gusto, licking the creamy residue from around his mouth between mouthfuls. “He must have been quite the man. Anyway, I don’t blame him. It’s bloody gorgeous.”

There was a tiny blob of cream on M’s beard, which he licked off.

“You’re disgusting,” said Arthur, smiling despite himself, and wondering where the sudden burst of affection came from.

“ _You’re_ disgusting.”

They sat in companionable silence for a moment or two.

“You going to tell me about him, then?” said M, dabbing at his face with a napkin. “Your father, I mean. It sounds like he had good taste in chocolate cake, at least.”

“Yeah.” Arthur sighed, and looked up at the ceiling, remembering. “He was all right, my dad. He wasn’t perfect, but then who is? He was kind, mostly. Always stuck up for me, even when I came out. Never let anyone bully me. He used to take me to the rugby, we loved doing that together. I miss him. And he was everything I had. After mum died, he used to say that we had to stick together, us Pendragon boys. We were a team, and mum was in heaven, cheering us on.”

“I understand.” M’s eyes were sad. “When I grew up,  there was only me and my mum. I mean, it was all right, though, mind, we were a team. And when y— when my friend died, she said he was watching over us, too. And it did help, a little bit.”

“Looking back, I think it helped him as much as it did me.” Arthur nodded. “And now he’s gone.” A sudden surge of anger spiked through him, making him draw in a surprised and bitter breath. “And I’m a team of one. Thanks a bunch, Dad.”  

There was a deep well of anger, deep and bitter, it had been festering inside him for a long time, and sometimes, like now, it bubbled over and made him want to spit and rage as he had when he was nine years old.

“It’s all right to be angry, Arthur.”

“It’s not anger, so much, as regret, I think, because, ha! It’s stupid, I know, but I can’t help feeling...” he said, trying to make light of it, but his mouth twisted in an echo of the feelings that seethed inside him. “I can’t help feeling that… you know. Maybe if… maybe if the old bastard hadn’t had quite so much chocolate cake, over the years. Maybe then, he’d still be here with me today.”

He stopped, not trusting his voice. _And I wouldn’t be all alone, any more,_ he added in the silence of his own mind.

_(How I wish.)_

“But maybe the chocolate cake gave solace to a lonely widower,” said M, gently. “Maybe eating chocolate cake here, with his son, gave him so much joy that it made his life worthwhile. Maybe it’s a memory of him that you can treasure. One of the ones that hurts like fuck, now, but you keep coming back to, because it’s so god-damn important, even if it only involves you, your dad, chocolate cake, and this naff 1980s soundtrack.”

“Fuck it, M.” Arthur’s voice shook, a bit, and he seemed to have lost control of his facial muscles, which were pulling his mouth down into a miserable moue, instead of letting him laugh off his deep, bone-sapping sadness as he wanted. “Damn you for being so fucking understanding. I’m trying to wallow in self pity here, and you’re spoiling it.”

“It’s not self pity, Arthur. It’s grief.” M looked down at his plate. “Sometimes… sometimes, it goes away for a second, and then it comes back, ten times worse, and makes you feel like you’re drowning. It presses you, and pushes at you and… and makes you want to scream and yell at the unfairness of it all, of the one person who meant everything being taken away, ripped so cruelly from you, and you look for someone to blame, someone to gouge and hack until they hurt as much as you do, but there isn’t anyone, and then….” he stopped talking, as if catching himself. “Fuck, I’m sorry Arthur. I got carried away. Look, it’s normal, and it never really leaves you, but you manage it, after a while.”

“Hmm.” Arthur studied the top of M’s head. M spoke so passionately. He had suffered a lot, that was clear. But who got to M’s age without suffering? “Forgive me for being sceptical, and candid, but you’re not young, M, I can see that, and yet I can’t see any evidence that you’re coping particularly with loss.”

“Oh, ha bloody ha.” M stuck his fork into the last piece of cake and shovelled it into his mouth. “At least I’m not wasting perfectly good cake, unlike some prats I could mention.”

“I’m offended.” Arthur found himself smiling again, at the familiarity of being insulted, which was weird, where on earth did that memory come from?

And he really was going to have to do something about these mercurial mood swings.

It was peculiar, he thought, idly, how the ends of M’s hair were white, but the roots were coming out dark, as if he’d had a dye job. Surely, it usually went the other way round?

M was such a curious person, full of contradictions. And yet here was Arthur, pouring his heart out to him, as comfortable with him as if he had known him for years.

“Who are you, really?” he blurted out, suddenly. “Why are you here? What does M stand for anyway? And how old are you, really?”

Looking up, M studied Arthur for a moment as if assessing whether he was worthy of this information, and then shrugged.

“Me? Why all the questions? I’m just a… Um... Friend? One with your best interests at heart.” M  nodded, and tapped his nose. “I’ve always had a fondness for nosy nincompoops and prying prats.”

“All right, be all mysterious if you want to.” Arthur snorted and leaned back in his chair, folding his arms.

“So, what brings you to this place? Bit of a busman’s holiday, for you, isn’t it, in here?” Oblivious to Arthur’s curiousity, M jerked his head over towards the counter, where the coffee machine hissed and gurgled.

“Now who’s being a nosy nincompoop?” said Arthur. “Anyway, at least I’ve got a job!”

“Hah! A job?” M snorted, his eyes disappearing into a blaze of crinkles. He waved one hand dismissively. His fingers were long and elegant, and oddly bore no trace of age. “A man of my age and talents has no need of such things.”

“And what sort of talents might they be?” said Arthur, interested despite himself.

“Magic.” M winked.

“Oh, for…” Arthur rolled his eyes, and made to push his chair back. The last thing he needed was some tin-pot clairvoyant promising him the ability to communicate with the dead. “Look, you’re not going to persuade me to any bloody seances or such like. Spiritualism is nothing but a big con, and my father warned me about people like y—”

“You misunderstand.” M’s eyes, the colour of the ocean, held an unfathomable sadness, though, which was not what Arthur expected from a con-artist. “I’m not a spiritualist. I am a warlock.”

“Is this all part of your ac—”

“Sit. Watch.”

Arthur couldn’t help it. The heaviness on his chest started to ease a little as he watched, fascinated, M’s fingers swirling through the air as if drawing intricate patterns.

 _“Upastige draca!”_ whispered M.

“What?” Arthur gasped out loud as a beautiful, golden dragon, reared up on M’s upturned hand. “How did you—?”

M clicked his fingers. Abruptly, the spark dragon blinked out, leaving only M’s empty hand behind. M leaned back on his chair, a faint smile quirking at one corner of his mouth.

“I told you,” he said. “Magic.” His voice was solemn, but there was a warmth around his eyes.

“So… you’re a conjuror, then?” said Arthur, frowning, trying to get his head round what he had just seen. “Magic shows and all that?”

“ _Conjuror?_ ” M frowned, as if terribly offended. “I bring you elemental magic, born of the earth itself and you call me a bloody _conjuror_? I’m not Paul bloody Daniels, you know, may he rest in peace. Or, or… whatsisname, that charlatan, oh God I hate him, it’s on the tip of my tongue, Paul wossname, why do they all have to be called Paul? McThingummybobby. Huh. Total poltroon.”

“Are you sure you’re not thinking of Derren Brown?” said Arthur, wondering where he managed to lose track of this conversation.

“Derren Brown? Don’t talk to me about Derren fecking Brown…” Waving his arms round animatedly, M seemed to have forgotten for a moment where they were. “McDoobry, that’s the one. McWilliams? No, McKenna! That’s it, Paul McKenna! That pox-riddled, pustulent imposter!“ His eyes flashed a wild shade of gold, like the ocean reflecting the sun, and a flurry of multi-hued sparks followed his arms in a thick swirl, like glitter, or stardust. “And as for Brown… that scrofulous, double-crossing dung-beetle! He’s no magician! He’s a scoundrel, and a louse-infested, lying weasel, to boot, and don’t let anyone tell you any different.”

“M,” said Arthur, alarmed. The sparks were beginning to attract attention from the other customers.

“Impudent, impecunious, tricksy toe-rag. Hah. He’d better not cross my path again, that jumped-up…”

“M!” said Arthur more loudly, gesturing towards the swirling cloud of multi-coloured motes that spun in dizzying swirls around M’s head like a swarm of tiny fairies.

“What? Oh. Oops!” With a sheepish grin, M clicked his fingers, and the colours winked suddenly out, returning the world to the washed-out near monochrome that had dogged Arthur’s life since his father died six weeks earlier. “Sorry. It’s my magic. It likes you, you see.”

“Me?” said Arthur, shocked. “Why me?”

“Because, Arthur, you’re not just the remaining half of Team Pendragon.” M’s hand covered his. It felt warm, alive. His eyes sparked with warm fire. “You’re so much more than that.”

“I don’t understand.”

“No.” M leaned back, releasing his hand, and his eyes dulled to their more customary grey-blue. “No, you don’t. Not yet.”

“Then tell me.” Arthur pressed his lips together to hide the tension in his jaw. “Stop…” he jammed his fists into his eyes, trying to drive away the frustration, and then let them fall, staring blearily at this man who was fast becoming something more important than just a stranger who had come into his coffee shop. “Just… stop...  dropping these heavy hints. It’s driving me barmy. Tell me what you _mean_.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.” Sighing, M shook his head. “You’re grieving. It wouldn’t be fair, not yet.”

No matter how Arthur railed and cajoled, M clammed up and wouldn’t say a thing. His lips folded tightly together and he shook his head.

 _Still as stubborn as a mule,_ Arthur thought, with a sudden swell of affection. _That much hasn’t changed._

Now where had that thought come from? Arthur frowned, but when no matter how hard he tried to chase it down, its origin eluded him.

~o~

“I’m so pleased for you!” He hugged Gwen, so small and warm against his chest, and tried not to think about the blankness that awaited him. “I know you’ve missed Elyan a lot.”

Gwen’s brother, who had been travelling for three months, had suddenly announced his imminent return.

“It’s been pretty weird without him,” she said, her voice muffled by his jumper. Then she caught herself, and looked up, aghast. “I don’t mean… I love having you here, Arthur, you’ve been such a help, and of course, you’re welcome to stay now that Elyan is coming back, there’ll always be a job for you here, and I...”

“Gwen.”  

“It has been, I mean, it still is! Lovely I mean! Still lovely, and you’re so good with the customers, of course I want you to stay on when he gets back, don’t even think about going back to that horrible job, you still need time to recover, your dad only died six weeks ago…”

He flinched. He couldn’t help it.

“Oh, God, Arthur, I’m so sorry.” Her hand flew up to her mouth. “I didn’t mean to mention—”

“It’s all right, you don’t need to tread on eggshells around me.” He huffed out a self-deprecating laugh. “Like you said, it’s been six weeks, I really should be getting a bit better by now.”

“You never stop loving them, even when they’re gone,” she said, her eyes going dark but suspiciously shiny. She bit her lip, which failed to disguise how it wobbled.

“Oh, God, Guinevere.” Sometimes Arthur forgot that it was only a year since Gwen lost her own father, and of course that was why she understood, why they instinctively clung to each other, why their friendship had come to mean so much, since— “I’m sorry, I’m such a self-centred ars—”

“Stop that.” She frowned. “Stop beating yourself up about stupid things you stupid man.”

“Sorry.”

“There you go again!” She bashed his arm, quite hard.

“How did you cope?” he says, knowing that the raw hurt must show on his face, and not from the bash to his arm, either.

“What makes you think that I did?” She turned back to the cappuccino machine, mopping at the steam nozzle, even though it already gleamed. “Elyan didn’t. That’s why he’s still in Australia.” Her voice caught on the last word.

“Oh, God, Guinevere, I’m so sor— ok. Ahem. Don’t hit me!” He half-laughed.

“Guinevere? Oh, for heaven’s sake, don’t start calling me that again!” She sniffed and buffed the top of the machine, making her curls bob. “Just… can you check the sell-by date on the milk?”

“Sure.”

He bent to peer at the bottles left in the fridge, grateful for the distraction. He’d found a haven here. A haven, where instead of paperwork, fine print and legal loopholes, his day was now filled with the heady scents of cinnamon, vanilla and bergamot, and he far preferred things that way. But he understood. This fragrant cocoon that he had created around himself had to be removed.

What sort of person would emerge, he wondered? Did it matter? Did anyone care? He swallowed. He was an orphan, now. Plenty of people were orphans. Did they all feel like this? As if nothing about them mattered any more?

Well, one thing was clear. He needed to let go, for Gwen’s sake. Maybe the other answers would come to him in the quiet of his own home. But whenever he thought of that desolate space, of the echo of his own footsteps on the wooden floor, a familiar sense of dread dragged at his heart. He didn’t believe in ghosts, of course not, but still his father and his regrets haunted him, he could hear them in the deafening silences, silences so loud that they woke him up at night and screamed at him until he couldn’t even bear to be in his own bed.

“Look.” With an effort, he swallowed down his dread. “What I’m trying to say is, well, you’ve been beyond kind, Guinevere, but…”

She bashed him, hard, on the arm, and glared. “There you go again! Of course you mustn’t. Go, I mean. You can’t! I need you here.”

But he knew. He could tell, from the little worried frown that appeared between her eyes whenever she thought he wasn’t looking, when she would eye the tiny space behind the counter, and shake her head. Yes, Arthur knew. There was not enough room for three people here.

“No you don’t,” he said, softly. He held onto her arms, and looked deeply into her eyes. “Not any more. And I’m enormously grateful. But I understand. It’s time for me to go.” Where, he did not know. Not back to the job that had stolen away his last years with his father, that was for sure.

(How I wish you were here.)

“Oh, Arthur.” Her eyes brimmed with the tears that he never seemed to be able to summon, no matter how much he wanted to. “I’m so sorry.”

“I know.” He half-smiled at her. “Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.”  

“Sure?”

“I’m sure.”

He wondered when he’d learned to lie so convincingly.

~o~

Arthur had never liked to swim, despite the best efforts of his father and many nannies to coax him into the water for lessons. He stood upon the small wooden bridge over the normally tiny river, leaning on the parapet, and staring down into the swirl beneath. The waters, swollen and heavy with silt, had darkened to a sludge brown colour that matched his mood. A man could drown in shallow water, such as this.

As he watched, a plastic bottle twirled and pirouetted downstream, a message from a careless human, content to cast away the toxic time-bomb with no thought for the creatures who lived downstream, for its final destination among the huge oceanic currents that were drowning in plastic and the discarded waste of a greedy species. Loathing filled him for a moment, at himself and others like him, parasites on this planet. There were so many ways for the innocent to drown; in waste, in filth, in plastic. The bottle could as well be the figure of a person, face down in the water, their troubles ended forever.

He squeezed his eyes shut, willing the vision to disappear.

When a warm elbow lined up alongside his, he knew without looking whose it was.

“You seem hell-bent on finding me whenever I’m in a mood,” said Arthur, opening bleary eyes and fixing them upon M’s face.

“I lost y— someone once before, by being careless, and not paying attention.” For once, M’s face was grave, his eyes devoid of that sparkle that reminded Arthur of the sunshine and the seaside. “I don’t want that to happen again.”

It was definitely M, but his face looked different again, the skin smoother, hair now a sooty black with just the odd fleck of white, cheekbones stark and pink in the freshening breeze. It was as if every time Arthur saw him, he somehow shed some of his age. But his eyes - his eyes had not changed. They still bore that air of deep pain, mingled with a mirth that threatened to bubble up at any moment.

With a sudden jolt, Arthur realised that M was startlingly beautiful.

“You are the most contrary person I think I have ever met,” blurted Arthur.

“All part of my charm.” M’s smile made his eyes dance. He nudged Arthur in the ribs. “C’mon, clotpole, you’ll freeze out here. Um. Hold on a minute. You’re getting wet.” With a flick of his wrist, Merlin made an umbrella appear seemingly out of no-where - which, given his talents, perhaps it really was.  The air under the umbrella was warm, compared to the air outside. As if they were in a magical bubble of warmth and dryness.

“Where are we going?” said Arthur, although his feet had responded almost of their own volition. As he walked, he could see steam evaporating off his sleeves. “How are you doing that?

“Questions, questions. So many questions.” M glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. “Look, I want to show you something. And once you’ve seen it, many things will become clear, others less so. But I do beg you to keep an open mind until it is all over, and then you can make a choice.”

“Oh, very cryptic, Houdini,” grumbled Arthur, although his curiosity was piqued.

“Houdini?” M let out an aghast exhale. “Huh! That egotistical escape-artist. I’m insulted to my very core.”

“Dynamo, then! Dynamo’s pretty cool”

“Pfft. A mere illusionist.” M blew a raspberry to show his disdain towards illusionists in general and Dynamo in particular. “Props, balance and good core strength do not equate with puissance, Arthur.”

“What about pomposity, eh, Uri Geller?” Arthur grinned.  

“Geller? Now you’re just taking the piss.” M’s mouth screwed up into a mock-hurt pout.

“What me?” Arthur didn’t know why ruffling M’s feathers was such fun. He wasn’t normally prone to such things. But there was something delightfully indignant about the set of M’s shoulders, about the half-dip of one eyebrow, the wrinkle of his nose, that filled Arthur with something akin to delight, and he was incredibly grateful, because suddenly where he had been heavy, so heavy with grief and guilt and melancholy, suddenly he felt lighter than the air itself.

They trudged on through the rain, their shoes scuffing on the bare stones of a half-made footpath, as Merlin led Arthur thought some fields and a small row of trees to the top of the hill, where he could see across the land - or he would be able to, if the rain had not been coming down in thick torrents that obscured the distant hills and power station that normally featured on the skyline.  

“Here we are.” M stopped abruptly, nose in the air as if trying to detect something by smell alone.

“I don’t see anyth—”

“Shh!” M started muttering in some obscure language.

“I’ll shush when I want to!”  Arthur rolled his eyes. He was fit, but the hill was steep and the short uphill walk had made him hot - and his poor scuffed, muddy Oxfords really weren’t designed for this sort of thing. “I’ve seen this view hundreds of times, and I have to tell you it’s a lot more impressive when the sun’s shi— holy crap, what the fuck’s that?”

This last statement greeted the parting mists, and what lay beyond.

Instead of the rain-drenched post-industrial landscape of central Albion, all patchwork fields punctuated with brutalist concrete tower blocks and decommissioned cooling towers, Arthur looked out onto a verdant expanse of trees. The landforms looked similar to what he was used to, but there, nestled among the woodlands was a beautiful citadel, its walls an improbably gleaming white - where was the soot? The pollution? As far as turrets and crenellations went, it had them aplenty, complete with arrow-slits and parapets, and flagpoles from which banners, flags and pennants fluttered gaily in the breeze. The air sparkled with sunshine. Arthur inhaled, deeply, filling his lungs with air that tasted fresh and scrubbed clean.

If M was an illusionist, he was a bloody good one.

Still breathing deeply, Arthur turned to his companion, and looked at him, harder than he had before. M’s expression was expectant, hopeful even. As if he was anticipating Arthur’s reaction.

“Well, clotpole?” he said softly, a smile tugging at his lips. “Do you remember?”

But it wasn’t the distant spectacle of his beloved land that sent the memories flooding through Arthur’s limbs until he staggered and fell to his knees. It was the pair of twinkling blue eyes, the clever hands that inserted themselves under his armpits and tugged him, still reeling, to his feet, anchoring him to the land that he loved. The lips from which reassuring words poured, in language soft and calm that rolled back the centuries until he was just standing on top of the hill, overlooking his kingdom, with his faithful servant by his side.

“Merlin,”  Arthur gasped. “Merlin! After all these years.” His throat felt thick, and the words struggled to be let out. “You came for me.”

“Arthur.” A bright sheen of tears welled up in Merlin’s eyes. “Yes. It’s me. I’m here. I’m here for you. I’ve always been here.”  

Transformation complete, Merlin was as Arthur now remembered him. His ears protruded at a jaunty angle that filled Arthur with such deep fondness that he thought he might explode from it.

Instead he drew Merlin in for a bear hug, his arms pulling him in closer until he fancied he could hear the frantic beating of Merlin’s heart, close, so close to his chest.

“Fuck,” said Arthur, squeezing his eyes tight shut against the sudden flood of emotion. “Fuck, it is you. It is really you. Oh, fuck. What is happening to me?”

“Hush,” said Merlin, tightening their embrace, his breath gusting hot along Arthur’s neck. “I’ve got you, now. I’ve got you.”

“Hold me. Please.” Arthur’s knees bent beneath him, and Merlin held him as he fell. Memories flooded through him. “Christ. It’s gone, all of it.”

It was still there at his core, the essence of the boy that had grown up in rural Surrey, the man that had commuted to London each day many years, too busy to see how frail his own father was becoming until it was too late. Yes, it was all still there, he was still the same, empty-hearted tangle of regrets and pain. But overlaying it all was this vast memory of another age - an age filled with courage and despair, with magic and betrayal, with chivalry and a burning need for justice, a conviction so vast that he could rule the world with it. The ancient woodlands, full of prey, of bandits and slavers, of merciless beasts and hidden dangers, the perfect challenges for a young man raised to conquer.

All gone, now.  

Arthur’s eyes pinged open. The visions vanished, leaving only the leaden sky, the drizzle and the mists. Raising his face to the grey heavens, he howled out his grief until the rain mingled with tears upon his cheeks

“Oh, God, Arthur, I’m so sorry I had to do that to you.” Merlin’s shoulders shook, but he held on. Which was what mattered. Because Arthur wasn’t sure if he would be able to stay upright, even on his knees, without that extra pair of arms snug around his waist. “I’m so sorry. I know it must be so hard for you, all this all at once, and with you still suffering from your loss, and all, I just… I wish it could have been different, I really do. I’m so sorry.”

Merlin had somehow shifted them around, so that one arm was holding Arthur up, while the other cupped Arthur’s cheek, one thumb idly stroking at Arthur’s jaw. It was such an intimate gesture, and one Arthur recognised so that he gasped out loud.

Merlin just kept saying “I’m sorry, so sorry!” over and over again, and sniffling, as if he was a kid, and not some sort of ancient, mythic being, the soft hearted idiot. Bloody idiot, trust Merlin to go apologising on and on like that about something that wasn’t his fault. How could he have born it, all these years, over that huge chasm of time, solitary and grieving, with a heart that soft? Only Merlin. Only Merlin!

“Shut up, Merlin,” growled Arthur through gritted teeth, clenched against the pain that crashed over him as he remembered all that they had been to one another, all that had been left unsaid when Arthur died

Suddenly, a lot of things about M, about _Merlin_ , things that had puzzled him about how familiar he looked, about his sense of ease around him, began to make sense. But at the same time they raised more questions.

“How long have you… why are you… but you’re so old… or are you? Merlin,?” When it came down to it, Arthur couldn’t really articulate so many questions, not all at once, so they just sort of trickled out of him, between ragged breaths that were like kind of half sobs, and, God, he had to stop this, he was a mess.

His knees upon the bare rock were wet through, and painful with it.

“I’ll tell you everything, Arthur, I swear.” Merlin’s hand was warm across Arthur’s back. Familiar, bony and surprisingly strong, it arced round his shoulders and tucked under his arm, hauling Arthur to his feet. “But let’s go somewhere else. I don’t want you catching your death of cold, not now, I’ve only just got you back...”

Arthur squinted through blurry eyes at Merlin’s face. He looked wrecked, a pathetic mirror image of Arthur. His nose was red, and his eyes wet, whether from the cold or the painful-sounding sobs that kept making his shoulders jerk, Arthur couldn’t tell.

“Look at us.” Arthur barked out a laugh. “We’re a right pair, aren’t we?” Snorting, Arthur tentatively put one step in front of the other, and then another. “You’d better come back to mine.” The laughter bubbled up in his chest, as sudden and uncontrollable as a volcanic explosion.

“Yeah,” said Merlin, hoarsely, letting out what sounded suspiciously like a giggle, the sort which nonetheless threatened to spill over into tears at any moment. “Look at us. Legendary king, all-powerful immortal sorcerer. Wet, hyperventilating and covered in mud.”

“Just like old times,” said Arthur, letting the laughter shake his shoulders and push stupid noises and tears and snot out of his nose and mouth. He fished a hanky out of his pocket and blew his disgusting nose. Every step that he took felt just a tiny bit stronger. “Just imagine! Oh, how the Saxons would be intimidated at the sight.”

“The mud monster.” Merlin snorted. There was indeed a large blob of mud on Merlin’s cheek. It reminded Arthur of something, but he couldn’t chase the memory down, not while violent tremors still wracked his body from his earlier epiphany. “A terror with a sword in one hand and magic in the other. Run away, petty fiends!” His voice darkened with an unexpected note of command, on this last word, sending a frisson down Arthur’s spine.

“Just like old times,” he repeated. “You and me, against the odds. But I never knew, did I? That you were holding a trump card, all that time. Magic.”

“Magic.” Merlin nodded, solemnly. “I wish I’d been able to tell you, Arthur. You never really knew what you were to me. Not til right at the end. And then I lost you altogether.”

“Don’t start me off again.” Feeling his eyes begin to sting, Arthur let out a breath that was half laugh, half sob. “Stupid fucking warlock. Getting up to all sorts, behind my back, instead of telling me what you were. What you felt.”

”I kept thinking that you’d find out, but you were far too busy being all,” Merlin waved his free arm dismissively. “Pompous. Pompous, and bossy.”  

“I was the King, Merlin,” growled Arthur. “You can hardly blame me for issuing orders. Not that you ever paid the slightest bit of attention to them, you insubordinate, disobedient bumpkin.”

“Well at least I wasn’t an insufferably arrogant, smug, princely prat…”

“Oi!” Arthur made to catch Merlin so that he could pin him down and deliver a friendly noogie to his head, but instead, with an instinct born of long years of service and a sudden impish grin, Merlin ducked out from under Arthur’s arm, shoved Arthur away, and ran off.

“Hey! Come back here and say that!” roared Arthur. An irrepressible sense of joy caught at him from nowhere, making him run after Merlin on not quite restored legs. “Impudent, presumptuous peasant!”

“You’ll have to catch me first!” yelled Merlin over his shoulder.

That didn’t prove to be too much of a problem. Merlin might be slightly longer in the leg, but years of rugby training had given Arthur an explosive burst of speed that few could beat, and a rugby tackle technique that enabled him to bring Merlin to earth a scant few seconds later, until they were both coated in mud from head to toe and struggling for superiority with dirty wrestling manoeuvres that Arthur had picked up from school. It didn’t take long for Arthur to end up, victorious and panting, straddling a prone though still struggling Merlin’s hips, and pinioning his arms..

“Gotcha! Submit, oh foul sorcerer,” said Arthur triumphantly, adrenaline making his heart sing so that he laughed out loud at Merlin’s disgruntled expression.

“Never, you bully!” Merlin stopped struggling and lay limp for a second. His eyes were very blue, all of a sudden, lit up as if from within by some deep, overwhelming joy. His breath was coming out in tiny, excited gasps, and his lips slightly parted, an inviting rose-red.

“Never say never.” Without thought, Arthur dipped forward and captured them with his own. Suddenly they were kissing, frantic and hungry, devouring each other with hot lips and tongues. Rain was still pouring onto his back, rivulets of it dripping onto Merlin’s face from Arthur’s hair, but still, but still! He was kissing Merlin, his sorcerer, his friend, his love, the bloody love of his life, and the rightness of it made him feel giddy.  

“Arthur,” gasped Merlin, canting his hips, twisting and squirming beneath Arthur’s touch, groaning into his mouth as if frantic with need. “Oh, God, Arthur, Arthur, please, please.” He was shaking now, and his eyes flashed that unearthly shade of gold. The air shimmered, alive with power, with something, with magic, Arthur didn’t know what.

A blinding flash and there was a sudden crack of thunder, high overhead, which crackled and boomed, echoing around the rain-drenched landscape. They were soaked to the bone, but Arthur couldn’t ever remember feeling this bone-deep sense of satisfaction, of belonging, of completion.  

But now wasn’t the time and place for what they were doing, and he knew it. He had to stop this before it got out of control.

“Hey,” he said gently, breaking the kiss and pushing himself off Merlin’s body.

Merlin made a small, bereft noise, half way between a whimper and a gasp, and his hand came up, catching Arthur’s, and giving it a desperate little tug, as if trying to drag Arthur back down, to complete what they had started. His eyes were blown wide, huge, black pupils in a sea of gold-and-blue.

“I think we need to dry off.” Arthur laughed, self-deprecatingly at the discomfort that his arousal was causing. “And maybe cool off. And maybe do some more communicating, before we do any more of this.”

“Prat.” Merlin’s mouth twisted into a mutinous moue, an expression at once so sad and yet so dear and familiar that it made Arthur’s chest ache. “You have no idea how long I have wai—”

“And you can wait a few more minutes. Come on.” He tugged Merlin up until they were eye to eye again. Sensing the moment when Merlin began to dart forward, Arthur pressed a pre-emptive finger to Merlin’s mouth, and shook his head. “Not here. Not now. Come on.” He tugged again. “Come with me.”

“I’m not a dog, you know.”

Disappointment had always given Merlin’s mouth a sulky downward turn, and pressed his lips out into a delicious-looking, full-lipped pout. The expression brought Arthur a sudden flush of vivid memory. It had been pure, medieval torture, he realised, having Merlin as a manservant. Because a painful surge of desire had _always_ punched through him when Merlin looked distressed and unhappy, and had always given him this sudden urge to kiss all Merlin’s sulks and frowns away.

When they got back to his house, for the first time in months it was filled with the sounds of love and laughter that banished the darkness, for a time. Later, when he woke up in the night, the faint outline of the moon ghosted through his curtains, falling onto the stark outlines of Merlin’s pale skin. An odd sensation stole over Arthur - something strangely like —well, if not contentment, at least acceptance.

Arthur and Merlin. They made a strange pair. Lost in time, or something. But at least now they had found each other.

 _“We’re just two lost souls,”_ he hummed. “ _Swimming in a fish bowl.”_

Merlin’s eyes flicked open. A sleepy smile tipped up his lips.

 _“Save it til the morning after,”_ he sang, quietly.

And with that, the house began to feel a little more like home, again. 

~o~

 


End file.
